Exploring Leader in a #Digitalfirst world – Carl Magnus Norden

Exploring Leader in a #Digitalfirst world – Carl Magnus Norden

On our quest to highlight inspiring leaders embracing the digital world, we share interviews with curious and brave leaders. We believe it is important to take inspiration from some of the more proactive digital leaders, to understand more of their personal journey and get access to some of their insights.

Our leader this time is Carl Magnus Norden. Carl Magnus is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder of the disruptive venture Volta Trucks and also the President of Swedish INSEAD Alumni Association.

Carl Magnus believes that the world needs more engaged entrepreneurs that is establishing new businesses to change our world for the better. He believes that you have different strengths at different ages, and that its the originality of the idea, closeness to customer need and the mix of the team that makes the difference.

This blogpost also points to a podcast episode, which focuses on Carl Magnus entrepreneurial journey and areas he believes we need to focus.

The episode is part of the podcast show Exploring Leaders which you can find via the link or on most places where you find podcasts.

Carl Magnus Norden’s journey to become a #rebornDigital Leader

So how did Carl Magnus come into the founder position he currently holds? Listen to CM’s inspiring response.

Carl Magnus has been a serial entrepreneur since 30+ Years. He took and MBA at INSEAD, which took him to a job in UK for an American company. He started his own businesses in real estate in Benelux and then started a company in Czech Republic, he came to Sweden and started an internet company and then went into crowdfunding.

During all this time, he has kept close to his class mates and other alumni’s from INSEAD, and as he returned to Sweden he increased the engagement and took on the President/Chairman role for the INSEAD Alumni Association. He believes that the benefit of an MBA from INSEAD is that he from day one got a strong international network.

You can easily see that also for Carl Magnus his core drive has been to be passionately curious and he has embraced risk to move forward.

A disruptive new venture capitalizing on many of the current trends – Volta Trucks

Carl Magnus shares that their slogan is

“We are building an electric truck for today’s cities and tomorrow’s generations”.

But he doesn’t believe the core of the business is to build and sell trucks, the business will be a service business. But building the truck that doesn’t exist today is the tool for them to be able to do the service business that will be the business for the future.

The prime reason he sees is that the industry stands in front of a major technology shift, going from diesel to electricity. And as in many technology shift he believes startups will be faster than the incumbents. The truck is also made with focus on transportation in the city centers, where all the major trends come together. Around sustainability, around urbanization and congestion for the city centers, around needed new types of drivers.

Capitalising of not coming from the industry

As Carl Magnus didn’t come from the industry he has spent a lot of time talking to and getting to know the needs of the customers, which has served the company well, in the way it is now getting formatted.

He has also drawn on the extensive international network, much from his INSEAD network, to staff up the company and to get the first investors on board. He then could reach for the needed industry competence and manufacturing competence in a fast and insightful way.

He is also passionate about the good global impact his venture will do with less, pollution, less congestions, less noise and more customer friendliness and higher employee engagement, which is all strong points to all the stakeholders of the venture.

On the questions “What stumble blocks did you fall into?” Carl Magnus advice is –

“Just get going!”

You can almost always adjust.

Capitalising on curiousity, network and experience that comes with age

Carl Magnus started his venture at the age of 64. This should stand as a major role model and inspiration for many of us.

He is still ambitions and curious. He has great experiences and a great international network. And he has the humbleness to complement himself with a diverse group of leaders that can contribute to a great and important venture. His view is that it is best to be a diverse group that bring different strengths to the table. The mission for Volta Trucks is inspiring and his link to Business as a Force for good is simple; “The more successfull we are the more good we are doing”

Recommendations to other entrepreneurs and leaders

Carl Magnus overall advice to other entrepreneurs and leaders are

“Ensure you understand the customer, build a good team and then: Just get going”

Finally on the question we share with our interviewees what furniture he would be, Carl Magnus pondered a bit and then it came natural …. Can I be a Plant? A Plant seeks natural energy and grows with the future and have a future outlook, they are part of a full recycle system. – And they are good for the world! Inspiring!

How to become more #digitallyInvolved

To get more insight of what Carl Magnus Norden knows and shares, we highly recommend you to checkout and follow his journey at Volta Trucks https://voltatrucks.com

To get more insight of what Carl Magnus Norden knows and shares, we highly recommend you to checkout and follow his journey at Volta Trucks

You can also checkout Carl Magnus Norden’s presentation of the venture Voltatruck at Stockholm Tech pitch event in January 2020

Learn more about some of the strategic trends Carl Magnus has spotted as Technology Innovations, Planet Resource Challenges, Social & Work Change, Urbanisation at the Digoshen blogpost about Mega Trends

Another very exciting major startup is led by former Tesla Supply Chain Executive Peter Carlsson; the electronic batteries factory Northvolt Follow Northvolt on twitter @Northvolt.

Of course you should also follow the Tesla founder Elon Musk on twitter @elonmusk

Also major industry players are starting to work on their electric strategies as can be found here from Scania

Follow INSEAD and learn more from their INSEAD Knowledge

And he is also a member at INSEAD Directors Network. which you can also follow on linkedin and twitter here @inseadidn

We believe it is important to share insights from inspiring #digital1st thought leaders, if you are one of them or know someone we should talk to, please send us a hint via http://digoshen.com/contact/ or via twitter @digoshen .

These interviews are shared on the blog of www.liselotteengstam.com as well as on the blog of Digoshen www.digoshen.com, This Interview is also be shared at INSEAD Sweden Alumni Website

At Digoshen we believe that Companies, Boards and Business Leadership Teams need to understand more of the digital world to fully leverage the potential when bringing their business into the digital age.

We provide inspiration and support to help transition business leaders into more insightful digital positions for themselves and their companies.